My daughter has updated her website! See link at right. New pictures of the grandkids at Halloween! Stop the presses!!! Newsflash!!!!
wrist hurts
here’s the top:
Bush’s new SCOTUS nominee is a Nazi No Brainer who even the most conservative appeals judges in the country can’t stand because he won’t be reasonable. He will make Scalia and Clarence Thomas look, respectively, like a liberal and a brilliant legal mind. Bend over, friends, and grease up, ’cause you’re about to be fucked and not kissed.
Rove should be fired. It’s not about criminality, it’s about decency and integrity.
Didn’t see anyone or do anything interesting this weekend, I stayed in mostly, trying to appreciate a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with jazz music playing while it was cold, cloudy and windy. Unfortunately, I also pissed away Monday and never got out of the house, not even to go to work. I’m ducking some relatives who want me to do legal work for free. Not my cup of tea, but it’s hard to tell that to family.
I’ve gone from “full flavor” to “lights” and today I started on “ultra lights”, stepping down my nicotine intake. Next stop is to some horrible brand that is more like running into the wind with a funnel in your mouth than really smoking a cigaret. After that, I’ll be on top of the patches, gum, lozenges, ear cuffs, acupuncture, hypnotism, prayer and unbridled aggression. If you see me with a flame thrower in my hands, just step away from the car. Nobody moves and nobody gets hurt.
…parting is such sweet sorrow…
More about masks
I’m back in the wrist brace today, so it’s not going to be much in the way of blogging because it hurts to type.
I met a masked vampire last night and she rocked my world. She was still wearing the mask this morning. We were at Untitled and at a private party in Bricktown. Yummy.
Masks are funny things. I had this class in college about Irish literature. It resulted in my only bigotry: I dislike the Irish. One of the things I learned, however, stuck with me. It’s that we have this public face that we put on as we go about our everyday lives. We mask with our real face the real person underneath. We tell the little white lies about how we’re doing (“fine!”) and put on a smile, even if we feel like hammered shit. We mask with our real faces the lust we feel for the person we see walking by so that they will not know what it is we’re thinking. On the other hand, when we put on a mask, the real person comes out. We lose that inhibition we have about revealing ourselves since we’re masked, and therefore anonymous.
Last night was magical in another respect. It was “fall back” night with the clock. Since the first time we had 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. would immediately be repeated at the time change, it seemed like anything that happened that hour was lost to the world and could be relived as we wished. Oh my. She bit my neck. There was very little blood. It was like a little death. Le Petite Morte. And then it was 1 a.m. again. I can’t be a vampire. Never to see my own reflection in a mirror again? Not worth the everlasting life for someone as vain as me.
Maybe it was a dream. A lusty fantasy. The house is quiet now. There are no reminders or some bit of detritus left to confirm what seemed to happen. No name or telephone number. No note. No email. Just a whisper in my ear of affection and desire. Does this happen in real life? Is this life real? Are there magical beings that inhabit our world? Do they leave early Sunday to go to church with their parents?
… parting is such sweet sorrow …
blah blah blogblah
I’m unenthusiastic about blogging today because I’m just flat out full bore unenthusiastic today. The privacy shattered Sharon used to josh me about being bored and tired with ennui. I have a complete give-a-darn attitude. I’m the embodiment of the joke song sung by Madeline Kahn (brilliantly lampooning Marlene Dietrich) in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles: I’m so tired.
Watched The Exorcist last night in a rare Friday Night Movie after dinner with Oz, Deb, SuzArt and The Gary. Special guest appearance, also a great rarity, by the one and only Dan D. O’Lay, who won the rake off with a stunning bon mot that left the usually very quick SuzArt speechless.
Dinner was also unusual: we went to Hideaway for pizza after the Paseo end of the week drink rituals.
Afterwards, I felt it was too early to go to bed on a Friday night at 10:30 p.m., so I took a peek at the GSpot and saw Christian, off work from his gig at school and at his food service gig. He says he’s taking the month of June in Dominican Republic and it sounds great. Also saw that put-together band that’s fronted by the big, pony-tailed former front man for DeNada. It was the best band not seen by anyone last night, the crowd being quite sparse.
I’m buying nicotine patches today, folks, so I want to repeat: if I should offer to rip off your head and shit down your neck sometime between now and Christmas, don’t take it personal, I’m just trying to quit this evil nicotine weed I smoke.
Of course, even after I quit, I’ll still be “smokin'”, as Jim Carrey, the man behind the Mask, would say.
I can’t quite get up any enthusiasm for my lovelife right now. Just got offered tickets to a wine tasting at Cowboy Hall and I just don’t know if I have it in me to find a date and dress up. The prospect of costuming for the several masquerades tonight almost overwhelms me. Ho Hum.
Supposedly got a payday yesterday that will help me either pay off debt or finish my kitchen floor, I’m not sure which yet. Of course, I might still blow it on clothes.
My son is going back to New Orleans next week to get his stuff. I’m tempted to go with them just to see for myself what’s left of the coast and one of my favorite cities.
Lunch with Mom and grocery shopping are in my immediate future. If I think of anything else, I’ll either write it or forget about it.
…parting is such sweet sorrow…
Movie review and such
Alas, Thursday evenings will be darker now that OCAM has suspended it’s cocktails on the roof get-togethers.
Went to see “History of Violence” with Viggo Mortenson, Ed Harris and William Hurt, among others, since I couldn’t go to the roof. Ran into Babs and we watched it together. We had to go. All our other friends had raved about this film. It was, as they had said, pretty good and there was, indeed, a sexy scene on a staircase.
I tried to go to Flip’s after the movie, but the Hornets game ended about the same time and the home town team won the game against Houston right at the buzzer and the folks coming in around 10:30 p.m. were so freakin’ loud in the bad accoustics of that place that I couldn’t stand it, not even with a cute cute cute brunette at the bar giving me the fuzzy eye of beer goggled admiration.
Saw Ralph sans Sharon and Catholic Kelly at G-Spot and heard a very strange Phantom of the Opera open mic night keyboard player.
…parting is such sweet sorrow…
Scooter Libby Indicted on 5 counts
Read the entire 22 page, 5 count indictment here:
He faces 30 years and a $1.25 million fine. Rove isn’t under indictment, but could be the next grand jury since he’s still under investigation for the same crimes as Libby: false statements, perjury and obstruction of justice.
guilty! Guilty! GUILTY!!!
Of course, the bigger crime by far is lying to the American people about the administration’s justification for going to war in Iraq. Let’s not forget that these crimes are about an attempt to discredit a former ambassador’s published account of his investigation (at Vice President Cheney’s behest) into the false claim that Saddam sought yellowcake uranium from Niger and his assertion that Bush & Co. had “twisted” intelligence to meet their theories. Now, when it’s too late to keep 150,000 Americans out of peril, we also know that the other WMD that Bush & Co. claimed were in Iraq — biological and chemical weapons — also didn’t exist except in Dick Cheney’s fevered imagination. We’ve also learned that the assertion by Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and David Feith, all still honored members of this administration, that there were ties between Saddam’s Iraq and al-Qaida is also an out and out lie, supported only by faked documents, just as the nuclear threat assertion was supported only by forged documents. 2,000 AMERICANS HAVE DIED FOR A HOAX!!!! CAN YOU IMAGINE AMERICA’S SCHOOLS IF WE SPENT $200 BILLION PER YEAR ON THEM INSTEAD OF ON THIS WAR???
News Bulletin
Harriet Miers has withdrawn her Supreme Court nomination.
Thank God. I was never opposed to her on ideological grounds; she was unqualified.
A Confederacy of Dunces
Newsweek exclusive: Bush’s Iraq-al Qaida link was phony and based on faked documents. Get your morning upset stomach right here:
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 7:07 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2005
Oct. 26, 2005 – A secret draft CIA report raises new questions about a principal argument used by the Bush administration to justify the war in Iraq: the claim that Saddam Hussein was “harboring” notorious terror leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi prior to the American invasion.The allegation that Zarqawi had visited Baghdad in May 2002 with Saddam’s sanction—purportedly for medical treatment—was once a centerpiece of the administration’s arguments about Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell cited Zarqawi’s alleged visit in his speech to the United Nations Security Council. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred obliquely to Zarqawi’s purported trip as an example of “bulletproof” evidence that the administration had assembled linking Saddam’s regime with Al Qaeda.
But like the uranium yellowcake claims—since determined to be fraudulent—that are at the heart of the CIA leak case, the administration’s original allegations about Zarqawi’s trip also seem to be melting away. An updated CIA re-examination of the issue recently concluded that Saddam’s regime may not have given Zarqawi “safe haven” after all.
Here’s the part that made me spit out my morning coffee because it’s just too much like the faked documents from Italy that supposedly showed that Iraq was seeking yellowcake from Niger:
The new report is only the latest chink in the armor of the alleged Saddam-Al Qaeda connection. Last year, the September 11 Commission found there was no “collaborative” relationship between the Iraqi regime and Osama bin Laden; one high-level Al Qaeda commander—who had been cited by Powell as testifying to talks about chemical- and biological-warfare training—later recanted his claims. But the Pentagon and Cheney’s office have been reluctant to abandon the case: in the months after U.S. and allied forces deposed Saddam, NEWSWEEK has learned, Iraqi informants approached U.S. intelligence personnel with what purported to be caches of documents proving that Saddam’s dealings with Al Qaeda were extensive. (One cache of documents even claimed that six of 19 of the September 11 hijackers had been trained to fly in Iraq.)
Current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials said that when officials at the Bush White House learned about the existence of documents linking Saddam to Al Qaeda, they became very excited and pressured intelligence agencies to work quickly to validate and decipher them. However, the CIA ultimately established that most key documents about the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection turned over were faked—just like the documents purporting to show Iraqi purchases of uranium.
We now have 2,000 Americans killed in this war. They died because Dick Cheney was hoaxed by forged and faked documents. Osama bin Lauden walks around free and we can’t turn on the lights and water in Baghdad after millions of dollars and more than a year of occupation. We are estranged from most of our traditional allies and despised by millions of ordinary people all over the world. This war is the most expensive, most self destructive foreign policy blunder in the entire 200 years of American history.
I'm in trouble now …
It seems clear that I’m take-no-prisoners against this administration and it’s war in Iraq. I readily confess to being a yellow dog Democrat liberal/progressive. I also hope it’s clear I love my son-in-law who’s in the military and I’m proud that he’s doing his duty and upholding his honor. I may have overstepped my bounds tonight, but, then, I’m sort of in the business of breaking rules nowadays. It’s part of my devil-may-care attitude this calendar year. I just don’t give much of a fuck. Anyway, maybe I overstepped my boundaries tonight when I not only attended tonight’s Moveon.org peace rally (followed by a candlelight vigil I sidestepped) at Memorial Park and held the “Honk for Peace” sign, but also allowed myself to be interviewed by someone who claimed to be from a radio network –1520 in OKC. Supposedly will be broadcast, if at all, tomorrow morning (Thursday). I think my son in law is an honorable man doing his duty without complaint as best he can and I’m very proud of him. I wish he were home with my grandchildren. I haven’t asked anyone’s permission to oppose this war. I opposed it before my son in law looked like he would have to go and I still do. This war is wrong and we should expose the leaders who took us into the war as the war profiteers and liars they have proved to be. We went in for the wrong reasons and did so at the wrong time. I believe Karl Rove’s need for election fodder has as much to do with why we are in Iraq as does the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Feith cabal that has plotted this use of American power since they were in the first Bush’s administration. I believe one of the principal reasons we don’t just leave is because we don’t know how. I don’t think adequate attention was paid to an exit strategy because their utopian ideas that didn’t pan out never took into account the reality on the ground. I think they knew the WMD intelligence was weak and I think they didn’t care. I think they knew there was no link between Saddam and al-Qaida and I think they didn’t care. I think we have increased and not reduced the liklihood of another terrorist attack on America. I think we have alienated the bulk of the Muslim world. I believe the still-at-large Osama bin Lauden thinks he could not have dreamed that America would be so stupid and that we’ve played right into his hands. I think we could have spent $200 billion in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank raising the standard of living for Palestinians and have destroyed worldwide terrorism as a threat to civilization.
Enough serious shit!
Missed the usual gathering on the Paseo on Wednesday to do the anti-war thing, but I caught up with them at the Lido and latecomers made it an even 13. They put us in “time out”, we were so rowdy. There’s only one thing I don’t like about so many at dinner and that is that I can’t listen to and participate in all the conversations that go on at once. Some conversations are like soap operas and you can just pick up a word here and there and now and again and still be able to follow the story line. Others are dense and/or require special attention due to the sotto voce of one of the participants. Of course, the whispered ones are the ones you most want to hear.
Movie night was well attended, although it ended flat for the Oz and his bride. Babs rented a movie none of us knew anything about: “11:14″ with Barbara Hershey and Patrick Swayze. It turned out to be pretty good, judging by the guffaws coming from The Gary. Even nervous SuzArt managed a belly laugh or two.
Saw Larry P at the Cup this a.m. and he stays with his no comment stance, but amplifies it to include something or another about silence.
A shout out to Miss K, seen confabbing with Randy S, looking sporty in his ballcap.
The Lebanese cyclist has been scarce of late, but I don’t know why.
…parting is such sweet sorrow
that I should say “good night”
’til it be morrow…
Bush for Perpetual War
This statement by our President, and this is from ABC News, scares the beejesus out of me, especially now that my son-in-law is in Iraq. If you can’t figure out why this is a radical change in American foreign policy that makes us the most bellicose nation on earth, the nation that spends more than all other nations combined on its military, just email me at School4Idiots.com
Bush, who contends that setting a date for troop withdrawal would aid the enemy’s cause, said that to fight Islamic radicals, the U.S. must work to prevent terrorist attacks before they occur, keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of “outlaw regimes” and deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of such governments.
“State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror,” he said. “The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them. Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has chosen to be an enemy of civilization and the civilized world must hold those regimes to account.”
Considering that nuclear arms have proliferated to Iran and North Korea, two “outlaw nations”, while Bush was coddling Saudi Arabia, where 19 of the 20 World Trade Center hijackers came from, this statement is outrageous. When you consider the Vice President’s stand on torture (see next item), what makes us think we’re so civilized? This president’s arrogant stupidity and ignorance have translated into fatal incompetence, in my opinion.
